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After Bombing, Bhutto Assails
Officials’ Ties Karachi, Oct. 19 - Looking pale and shaken the day after she survived a suicide bomb attack, the opposition leader Benazir Bhutto said that she had warned the Pakistani government that suicide bomb squads were going to go after her on her return to the country and that it had failed to act on the information.
Ms. Bhutto did not blame the president, Gen. Pervaiz Musharraf, for the bomb blasts and said extremist Islamic groups who wanted to take over the country were behind the attacks, which killed 139 people. But she pointed the finger at government officials who she said were sympathetic to the militants and were abusing their powers to advance their cause. She did not identify them. It was not clear if she was implicating the officials directly or accusing them of dragging their feet on her warning. “I am not accusing the government, but I am accusing certain individuals who abuse their positions, who abuse their powers,” she said at a news conference of hundreds of journalists in the garden of her home in Clifton, an upscale neighborhood of the southern port city of Karachi. Wearing a white headscarf and traditional tunic and trousers as well as a black armband, the 54-year-old opposition leader said, however, that the attacks would not deter her from leading the Pakistan People’s Party in parliamentary elections due in January. ”We are prepared to risk our lives. We’re prepared to risk our liberty. But we’re not prepared to surrender this great nation to militants,” she said. ”The attack was on what I represent. The attack was on democracy and very unity and integrity of Pakistan.” “I know in my heart who my enemies are,” she added. “There is a poem that says that even if you hide yourself behind seven veils, I can still see your hand.” While it was not possible to assess the veracity of Ms. Bhutto’s charges, she has long accused parts of the government, namely Pakistan’s premier military intelligence agency, the Inter-Services Intelligence, or ISI, of working against her and her party because they oppose her liberal, secular agenda. Aides close to Ms. Bhutto said that one of those named in the letter was Ijaz Shah, the director general of the Intelligence Bureau, another of the country’s intelligence agencies and a close associate of General Musharraf. Mr. Shah hung up when asked by telephone for a reaction to the allegations. Ms. Bhutto seemed careful not to implicate General Musharraf, taking pains for the time being to preserve the power-sharing arrangement that allowed her to return to Pakistan, and which may make her prime minister for a third time after parliamentary elections in January. She spoke to the president by telephone. The ISI has for decades backed militant Islamic groups in Kashmir and in Afghanistan in pursuit of a military strategy established by the former military dictator, Gen. Muhammad Zia ul Haq, in the 1970s. “I know exactly who wants to kill me,” Ms. Bhutto said. “It is dignitaries of the former regime of General Zia who are today behind the extremism and the fanaticism.” Before her return, she said a “brotherly country,” which she did not identify, warned her that several suicide squads were plotting attacks against her — one from a Taliban group, one from Al Qaeda, one from Pakistani Taliban and one from Karachi. That friendly government, she said, had also supplied Pakistan’s government with telephone numbers the plotters were using. “I would hope with so much information in their hands the government would have been able to apprehend them,” she said, “but I can understand the difficulties.” Aware of the risks she faced, she said she sent General Musharraf the letter two days before her return, naming “three individuals and more” who should be investigated for their sympathies with the militants in case she was assassinated. She added that there were more plots against her, including one to infiltrate police guarding her homes in Karachi and the rural district of Larkana in order to mount attacks “in the garb of a rival political party.” Ms. Bhutto said the street lamps had been turned off Thursday night as her cavalcade inched its way through Karachi, amid perhaps as many as 200,000 supporters and party workers who had turned out to celebrate her return after eight years of self-imposed exile to avoid corruption charges. The darkness made it difficult, she said, for her security officials to scan the crowd for possible bombers. She did not accuse the government of turning off the lights, but demanded an investigation. A security official said the government was investigating which group was behind the blasts, and said that five groups of militants from Pakistan’s tribal areas, on the Afghan border, had trained and dispatched suicide bombers for her arrival. The details of the attack remained disputed on Friday. Ms. Bhutto implied that the two blasts were set off by two bombers. Government officials, who updated the toll to 134 killed and about 450 wounded, said the explosions were caused by one bomber on foot who first detonated a grenade and then blew himself up, scattering a lethal mix of screws, pellets and shrapnel into the dense crowd massed around Ms. Bhutto’s armored truck. “We have no doubt it was a suicide attack,” the home secretary of Sindh province, Ghulam Muhammad Mohtarem, a retired brigadier, said Friday at a news conference, flanked by the Karachi police chief and other high-ranking police officials. The target, he agreed, was Ms. Bhutto. “It can’t be definitively said which group was involved but it is one of the extremist groups,” he said. Baitullah Mehsud, a pro-Taliban militant commander from Pakistan’s tribal areas, who has been accused of threatening to send bombers after Ms. Bhutto, denied that he was involved, Reuters reported. Ms. Bhutto said the attack was more than an assassination attempt on her, and represented the broader aims of Islamist terrorism. “The attack was not on me,” she said, “the attack was on what I represent, it was an attack on democracy, by those who are against the unity and integrity of Pakistan.” The blasts killed 50 of the security guards from her Pakistan People’s Party who had formed a human chain around her truck to keep potential bombers away, Ms. Bhutto said. A woman and a small child were among the dead, she said. A number of senior officials on the truck were also wounded. Officials said six police officers were killed and 20 wounded. Ms. Bhutto said she had been sitting down at the back of the truck to relieve her swollen feet, and to go over a speech with her political assistant, and so had avoided the force of the blast. She vowed that she would not be deterred by the attack. “They are saying peace-loving people are not safe to gather,” she said of the militants. “A minority wants to hijack the destiny of this great nation. And we will not be intimidated by this minority.” “I know who the forces are of militancy, and I know they want to kill me because they are cowards,” she added. “They cannot face the people of Pakistan in the political field.” She said she had thanked people in the government who also have given her warnings of plots. She appealed for them to continue passing her information. General Musharraf called Ms. Bhutto on Friday, expressed his “shock and profound grief” and prayed for the safety and security of Ms. Bhutto, the government news agency, the Associated Press of Pakistan, reported. “The president expressed his firm resolve that all possible steps would be taken and a thorough investigation would be carried out to bring the perpetrators to justice,” the news agency said. It added that the president had ordered law enforcement authorities to track down the mastermind of the bombings within 48 hours, and had offered a force of special services commandos trained by the United States to Ms. Bhutto for her protection. The attack was condemned around the world, from India to China, by Russia and the United States. The White House, which has backed Ms Bhutto’s power-sharing deal with General Musharraf, was outraged. ”Extremists will not be allowed to stop Pakistanis from selecting their representatives through an open and democratic process,” said Gordon Johndroe, President Bush’s foreign affairs spokesman. Speaking at the European Union summit in Lisbon, Gordon Brown sent his condolences for the tragedy. ”The message must go out that we will not tolerate this terrorist violence. We will give support to the Pakistani authorities in dealing with those terrorists who caused the bombings,” he said. ”We will support at all times the attempts by the Pakistani people to re-establish democracy in their country.” The blasts came after a day of huge emotion. Standing wet-eyed on the steps of the aircraft that had brought her back to Pakistan after eight years of exile, dressed in the vivid green of the national flag, Ms Bhutto had pressed her fingers to her eyes and then raised her hands to the sky, as the crowd roared: ”You will be the next leader of our country.” Karachi was almost deserted Friday in the aftermath of the attack. Almost all shopping malls and business centers closed for fear of more violence. A crowd gathered at the scene of the blasts to offer prayers on the blood-stained median dividing the road. The heavy smell of dead bodies hung in the air. At a morgue run by the Edhi Foundation, a private relief organization, bodies wrapped in white shrouds were brought in from hospitals around the city. Distraught relatives milled around to inquire about the dead and missing, covering their noses to escape the stench. Ali Muhammad, 45, a driver, was standing with reddened eyes near the information room on Friday at noon. He said his 18-year-old nephew Zohaib had been missing since last night. “We searched in every hospital,” he said, close to tears. “We inquired from every police station. It’s only just now that we have located him here. The body is all blood.” Graham Bowley contributed reporting from New York.
Death toll rises in Bhutto attack Karachi, at least 150 people were killed and more than 500 wounded around midnight Thursday in a suicide bombing near a motorcade carrying former Pakistani Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto, who returned to the country earlier in the day after eight years of self-imposed exile, according to hospital and police sources. Bhutto and those with her were unhurt, and her companions said she reached her family home safely. Video footage showed her exiting the bullet- and blast-proof vehicle after the blasts. Pakistan’s president, Gen. Pervez Musharraf, called Bhutto Friday to condemn the bombing and assure her that an independent investigation will be completed as soon as possible, his office said. She apparently had moved from the roof of the vehicle inside and downstairs just moments before the blasts. ”I can see body parts strewn all over the road,” said CNN’s Dan Rivers, at the scene. ”There are dead bodies everywhere. ... It is a large-scale attack, by the looks of things.” Authorities believe the suicide bomber was on foot and threw a grenade to attract attention before setting of the second, major blast, Karachi police chief Azhar Farooqi told CNN. The bomber is believed to have acted alone. Police do not think a car bomb was involved, he said. Nearby cars were burned but police do not believe a bomb was inside the car. He would not say who authorities believe was behind the bombing, citing the ongoing investigation. ”Although the truck that Benazir Bhutto was riding on was surrounded by police cars, so the suicide bomber could not get onto the truck and could not get anywhere near it, so he blew himself up and that has caused many casualties, mostly among the policemen who were riding beside the truck,” Tariq Azim Khan, Pakistani information minister, told CNN. Other officials said at least one bomb apparently had been placed in a car on the street where Bhutto’s supporters had gathered to see her convoy pass. One witness told Rivers he saw a car with three people inside explode. Video footage showed a chaotic scene after the explosions, with crowds of people trying to flee as emergency vehicles jammed streets. Other footage showed wounded victims writhing on a road, awaiting medical attention, and at least one fire apparently sparked by the blasts. The windshield of the vehicle Bhutto was riding in was smashed by the blasts, Rivers said, and a vehicle that was following hers was burned out. The scene, he said, was ”absolutely horrendous,” with blood running in streams down the street. Because the streets were crowded with supporters who had turned out to greet Bhutto, ambulances had difficulty reaching the scene immediately after the blasts. Onlookers resorted to ferrying the injured to hospitals in private cars. Rivers said he and his crew, filming the convoy just before the blasts, remarked on the lack of security surrounding it. It was possible to walk right up to the side of her vehicle without being stopped, he said. Qasim Zia, a leader of Bhutto’s Pakistan People’s Party, was riding on Bhutto’s vehicle and told CNN one of his bodyguards was killed and another seriously hurt. The wounded included at least 20 leaders of the party, he said, and most of those killed were members of security forces or police who were surrounding Bhutto’s truck at the time of the explosions. Had it not been for heightened security measures in place, Bhutto could have been wounded or killed, he said. The bomb detonated as Bhutto’s motorcade was nearing the tomb of Muhammad Ali Jinnah, who led Pakistan to independence and championed equal rights for all Pakistani citizens regardless of their religion. Bhutto had planned to stop and pray at the tomb, then deliver a speech to her supporters. The United States was swift to condemn what it called ”terrorist attacks in Karachi during peaceful political demonstrations.” ”There is no political cause that can justify the murder of innocent people,” State Department spokesman Tom Casey said in a written statement. White House spokesman Gordon Johndroe said, ”extremists will not be allowed to stop Pakistanis from selecting their representatives through an open and democratic process.” United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon also issued a statement condeming the bombing, and British Foreign Secretary David Miliband said he was ”appalled” by the ”horrific” attacks. The terrorist watch group IntelCenter said the death toll from the bombing places it among the top 10 deadliest terror attacks within the past nine years.
“Pakistan’s 9/11”: Benazir Bhutto’s Suicide Welcome A pair of suicide bomb attacks went off in ex-Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto’s caravan. This is her first day back in Pakistan. At the moment, the death-toll is 125 with almost 600 injured. The numbers of both are rising. Bhutto, along with top ranking members of Pakistan’s People’s Party, were all atop the truck that was hit, waving to supporters on the ground. The caravan was headed to the mausoleum of Pakistan’s founder, Muhammad Ali Jinnah.
Eyewitnesses on Pakistani TV are saying that immediately after the bombs they felt human flesh hitting them in the head. In private correspondence with me, one Daily Times Pakistan columnist referred to the attacks as “Pakistan’s 9/11.” The reason for her reference has to do not necessarily with the death-toll but with the gravity of the attack. The area in Karachi where the bombs hit is called Karsaz. It is a high-end residential area, populated by the family of businessmen and other “old money.” These people have significant pull in the country’s politics and will naturally seek revenge. Geo TV, Pakistan’s top private news-station captured the bomb blast on TV, and undoubtedly the image will be seared into the minds of the Pakistani public. The enormous death toll, the camera documented carnage, the media-storm that was already present at the caravan, will all make certain that these two bombs will echo long into the future of Pakistani public. They will most certainly affect the upcoming parliamentary elections. Prior to her arrival, Bhutto had begun to receive information about attacks being planned against her. An editorial by Pakistan’s Daily Times discussed the identity of the planners, specifically a Taliban leader named Abdullah Masood. The editorial links the militants in Waziristan (on the Afghanistan border), and “retired officers” from Pakistan’s military who have an “ideological affinity” with the Taliban. Hussein Haqqani, from the conservative Hudon Institute, is reporting on BBC that prior to her arrival, Bhutto wrote a letter to Musharraf alerting him about the specific personalities both inside and outside government that would likely threaten her. Bhutto herself thinks that Masood is a “pawn” working for her enemies in Pakistan’s military. One of the reasons Bhutto elicited these threats has mostly to do with the fact that she has said that she would allow a US strike inside Pakistan to eliminate Bin Laden. She said, specifically: “I would hope that I would be able to take Osama bin Laden myself without depending on the Americans. But if I couldn’t do it, of course we [Pakistan and US] are fighting this war together and [I] would seek their co-operation in eliminating him.” It should be kept in mind that Musharraf had completely refused the US to strike inside Pakistan, and in fact, Bush did not go into Pakistan because he did not want to upset Musharraf. So, Bhutto’s position of allowing the US in is different from those of other political leaders in Pakistan. It makes her more of a target. Imran Khan, another one of Musharraf’s opposition democratic leaders, and head of the Tehrik e Insaf Party which favors a welfare state in Pakistan, calls Bhutto a neo-con for her alliance with the US. I have also been speaking to cynics in Pakistan who believe that Bhutto will now that she has been lucky enough to survive will be able to manipulate the attacks for political advantage. A Pakistani lawyer I spoke with believes that the attacks will allow Bhutto to minimize the history of her corruption and extra-judicial killing in her previous two terms as Prime Minister. There was an interesting analysis about Bhutto’s return to Pakistan at the Guardian UK today, pointing out that Bhutto’s return represents four years of back channel discussion involving the US, UK, and Musharraf. The columnist argued that Bhutto’s return doesn’t really represent the affirmation of democracy at all, and jihadists will be sure to point that out with their violence the analysis seems prophetic at this point. Interestingly, former prime minister Nawaz Sharif, the man who was removed by General Musharraf and exiled to Saudi Arabia, pointed out on Pakistani TV that prior to the dictatorship in 1999, there was no such thing as suicide bombing inside Pakistan. While I do not have particular fondness for Sharif, he has a point. Though, it should also be considered that it was Pakistan’s democratic leaders Benazir in specific who actually constructed the Taliban in 1996 (something she admits). Meanwhile, it was Sharif who served as the lap-dog of Islamist dictator Zia ul Haq in the 1980’s and made alliances with Islamist parties. It was Sharif who caved to the fundamentalists in the late 90’s and took the step of detonating the nuclear tests. In both the short and long-term, my sense is that Pakistan is now on its way to a civil war, which will be focused on the Waziristan region. Already, Pakistan has had 90,000 soldiers deployed in the area.Meanwhile, on Pakistani TV, a commercial that shows a number of adorable children speaking out against terrorists one of whom is saying “Enough is enough!” is on repeat.
Benazir Bhutto survives Karachi carnage
150 killed, hundreds injured in
bomb blasts; Benazir suspects “three individuals” of conspiring
against her. By Nirupama Subramanian
Karachi: Pakistan People’s Party leader Benazir Bhutto, who narrowly escaped an apparent bid on her life hours after she returned to Pakistan from self-imposed exile, said on Friday the suspected suicide attack that killed at least 140 people and injured several hundred others (agencies said over 500 were injured) in her mammoth welcome procession, was not an attack on her, but on the promise of democracy and empowerment that she represented. Ms. Bhutto said the attack would not deter her or her party from their mission to bring democracy to Pakistan. “Campaign will go on” “I and my colleagues want to save Pakistan by bringing democracy to Pakistan. We will not stop our campaign, we will not stop our struggle. In spite of our great loss yesterday, we will not be deterred,” the former Prime Minister said at a press conference. The gruesome attack took place shortly after midnight on Thursday on the main road from the airport. Hundreds of thousands of PPP supporters were leading Ms. Bhutto in a slow procession to the mausoleum of Mohammed Ali Jinnah, Pakistan’s founder, where she was to address a public gathering. The impact of the two blasts in quick succession targeting the left side of the modified container truck on which she was traveling was powerful enough to cause some damage to the bullet proof vehicle. Shortly before the blast, the former Prime Minister had gone down into the vehicle from the roof, where she had stood for hours waving to her supporters. Ms. Bhutto said at a press conference that the blasts were suicide attacks. This was confirmed by the Sindh government. “The attack was more than an attack on an individual. The attack was not on me, it was on what I represent. It was an attack on the unity and integrity of Pakistan, because PPP is a federal party. It was an attack on democracy because it attacked the empowerment of people, who want to escape from vested interests and hope for the opportunity of a better life,” she said. But while PPP activists and leaders angrily blamed President Pervaiz Musharraf for engineering the attacks as it could not tolerate such a show of strength, Ms. Bhutto, who returned to Pakistan after an agreement with Gen. Musharraf, was more restrained. She said she would not blame the government “at this stage,” that she suspected three individuals who she refused to name, either in government or with an association to it, of conspiring against her. Ms. Bhutto said she had written two days before her arrival to Gen. Musharraf naming the three individuals. In addition, the government had received intelligence reports from a “brother country” of the deployment of four suicide squads in Karachi to kill her
Twin bombs strike at Benazir Bhutto’s parade Ms Bhutto was reported to be safe, but at least 150 people were killed and more than 500 injured as two blasts detonated in the heart of the tightly-packed crowd causing carnage and chaos. Intelligence reports had suggested at least three jihadi groups linked to al-Qa’eda and the Taliban were plotting suicide attacks. But Ms Bhutto’s husband blamed an unnamed Pakistani intelligence agency for the assassination attempt. ”We blame one intelligence agency and we demand action against it... it is not done by militants, it is done by that intelligence agency,” Ms Bhutto’s husband, Asif Ali Zardari, told private ARY ONE television. ”Our people have died, our workers have died, they have sacrificed their lives for the sake of democracy in Pakistan.” A British journalist who was travelling on the vehicle when the bombs detonated said Ms Bhutto was downstairs in a special armoured compartment in the vehicle. Christina Lamb told Sky News: ”Suddenly there was a massive blast. We were all thrown onto the floor and everybody was shouting ”Down! Down!” The bombers struck at around midnight despite the presence of some 20,000 security personnel deployed to provide protection. At least 20 of the dead were policemen who were in three police vans that were completely destroyed by the attack. Ms Bhutto, shaken but unhurt by the blast, and leading members of her party were whisked away in a high-security operation from the scorched and charred vehicle amid smoke and debris. An initial small explosion was followed moments later by a huge blast just feet from the front of the truck. Rescuers scrambled to drag bodies from the twisted wreckage of blazing vehicles as flames lit up the night sky in Pakistan’s most violent city. Eyewitnesses described seeing the ground strewn with body parts. Television footage showed horrific images of the dead and wounded being ferried in fleets of ambulances, taxis and private cars to hospitals. Last night anxious relatives were reported to be crowded around hospitals desperate for any news of the dead and injured. ”After the blast there were a lot of people scattering everywhere. I couldn’t understand what happened. My brothers and my family were injured,” Muhammad Ali Baluch told local television. ”I took five or six bodies to the ambulances,” he said. ”But there were still more people lying on the ground and there were bloody pieces of body on the ground.” Minutes earlier, hundreds of people had packed Karsaz Road in a busy neighbourhood in eastern Karachi after waiting for hours to catch a glimpse of Ms Bhutto as her convoy passed. ”I didn’t see the first blast but I heard it and it was big,” Mr Baluch said. ”But I saw the second and people were scattering everywhere. I was searching for my brothers and I could not find them,” he said. Last night Foreign Secretary David Miliband condemned the attack.”I am appalled by the attacks in Karachi that have killed at least 100 people and injured many others,” he said. ”I condemn utterly the use of violence against entirely innocent people and the attempt to suppress the right of Pakistanis to express their democratic voice,” he added. The attackers spelt out in blood the threat facing both Gen Musharraf, who has survived three assassination attempts, and Ms Bhutto as Pakistan entered one of its most volatile periods of its 60 year history. With elections scheduled to take place at the beginning of next year the bombs exposed the vulnerable nature of Pakistan’s stuttering attempts to restore democracy. Baitullah Mehsud, a pro-Taliban commander from Pakistan’s lawless tribal areas warned earlier this month that he would dispatch suicide bombers to the avowedly secular Ms Bhutto, who pledged to take on Islamic militants on her return. Pakistan has been hit by a series of suicide bomb attacks since July when commandos assaulted Islamabad’s radical Red Mosque, in which over 100 were killed, and the army deployed two extra divisions to the tribal area on the Afghan-Pakistan border which is a haven for al-Qa’eda and Taliban militants. Gen Musharraf had declared a war between ”moderates and extremists”. The attack deepened the fissures dividing Pakistan and its role in the war on terror.
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